Bruce Miller

Mary McNamara

Three episodes in, the story is certainly serpentine, at times self-consciously so. But there does appear to be writerly method in the madness. More important, there is Farmiga, and she, like Norma, appears up to any task.

Hank Stuever

Tim Goodman

Expect a slow(ish) rollout for Bates Motel, as the first couple of episodes establish character and location, before things take an uptick during episode three. But there’s more than enough intrigue and entertainment--on top of Farmiga’s outstanding turn--to keep viewers wanting more of this new-style nonhomage to Psycho.

David Wiegand

For now, though, the credibility issues don't matter that much because we're more interested in the characters, who may not be all that credibly created themselves, but who are informed by Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece.

Matthew Gilbert

They’ve done a smart job of building a cryptic, threatening world around the disturbing relationship at its center.... Highmore is just right as Norman.... I’m less convinced by Farmiga, who doesn’t seem to have a strong fix on Norma’s motivations.

Rob Owen

Bates Motel takes a few episodes to get going as the writers build the world of White Pine Bay, and the story appears poised to really kick into a higher gear with a revelation at the end of the third episode. Up to this point Bates Motel is an OK character drama, but in building the broader world it inhabits the show begins to come into sharper focus.

James Poniewozik

Maybe the most encouraging thing about this intriguing but imperfect Young Norman Bates Adventures show is that, in a time when dramas are determined to hook viewers with rapid-fire twists, it takes its time answering.

Alan Sepinwall

The lead performances, and the way that relationship is written, are all excellent enough to stick around a little while longer in the hopes that Bates Motel as a whole becomes something more interesting. But a lot of that may also depend on what exactly Cuse and Ehrin want Norman Bates to turn into, and how quickly.

Linda Stasi

Robert Bianco

Were Bates Motel a movie, Farmiga and Highmore (who has Tony Perkins' troubling, sort-of-smiling stare down cold) might be able to keep you tied to these damaged creatures through to the end of the film. But for a series, these do not feel like ties that bind.

Alessandra Stanley

Bates Motel has a talented cast and a memorable back story that guides, but doesn’t limit, the narrative, and at its best it’s intriguing and enjoyably grim. But even more than Norman, the series itself has a split personality, a Hitchcock classic grafted onto a much more mundane brand of suspense. Each new twist moves it further from “Psycho” and closer to Nancy Drew.

J.C. Macek III

Matt Zoller Seitz

I’m torn between condemning the series for piggybacking on a classic and promising an origin story it doesn’t really care to deliver, and praising it for avoiding the homicidal Muppet Babies formula and pulling a pretty brazen bait-and-switch.

Tom Gliatto

Brian Lowry

To their credit, the producers do keep things interesting, for the most part without resorting to the cheap tricks that have characterized the vastly overrated “American Horror Story.” Nevertheless, the premise becomes its own creative prison, fostering a hurry-up-and-wait attitude as the story metes out its examples of the things that make this duo, well, different.

Chuck Bowen

Greater offenses have been committed in the name of Psycho, such as the regrettable Psycho III, but this series might be less forgivable for the egregiously pandering waste of talent and potential on display.